Amy Leona Havin

Amy Leona Havin is a Portland-based journalist, poet, and essayist specializing in arts and culture. She covers language arts, dance, and film for Oregon ArtsWatch and serves as a staff writer at The Oregonian/OregonLive. Her writing has appeared in San Diego Poetry Annual, HereIn Arts Journal, Humana Obscura, The Chronicle, and other publications. In 2023, she received the Commerce Award for Publishers in recognition of her contributions to digital media (Condé Nast). Havin has held artist residencies at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Archipelago Gallery, and Art/Lab, and was shortlisted for the Bridport International Creative Writing Prize in poetry. With a background in classical ballet, Graham technique, and Gaga Movement Language, she is also the Artistic Director of The Holding Project, a Portland-based contemporary dance company.

Katherine Murphy Lewis’s ‘From the Ground UP’ plans for the future

July 9, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Lewis's nonprofit is a home for developing adventurous new performance ranging from dance to physical theater, femme storytelling, clowning, and more.

Author Q&A: Rebecca Clarren, winner of a 2025 Oregon Book Award for ‘The Cost of Free Land’

July 7, 2025Amy Leona Havin

The Portland author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry says writing about her family's history was fantastic, painful — and hard.

LitWatch July: Summer Fishtrap and the Bigfoot Poetry Festival

June 30, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Authors appearing around the state will talk about the female body and evolution, hikes around Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge, and Jack Kerouac's Buddhist years.

Dance Maker Discussion: Tahni Holt’s long-term collaboration with community and open systems

June 21, 2025Amy Leona Havin

The Portland and global dance artist creates "a landscape in which there is room for glimpses of everyone’s stories."

The Reser’s 25/26 season: Eliades Ochoa, Portland Cello Project, Versa-Style Street Dance Company and more

June 14, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Beaverton's visual and performing arts center announces its newest season of performances, to kick off in September.

‘Nostalgia Is So Yesterday’: David Hume Kennerly and Charles Jennings talk politics and their collaboration of photos and poetry

May 30, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Cygnet Salon presents a one-night performance by Bruce Burkhartsmeier, David Meyers, Vana O’Brien, and Kathleen Worley on the work and friendship of the two men.

LitWatch June: Portland Book Week, Oregon Book Award winner Willy Vlautin, and Jess Walter’s new novel

May 29, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Summer arrives with a week of bookstore events and appearances by Karen Russell, Bill Ayers, Jane Kirkpatrick, and queer storytellers.

Dance Review: Canada’s Rubberband is a joy to behold

April 30, 2025Amy Leona Havin

In its White Bird performances at The Reser in Beaverton, the company brilliantly blends hip-hop, contemporary and classical elements into a fused whole.

LitWatch May: Raymond Carver Writing Festival returns to Clatskanie; Viet Than Nguyen’s new book

April 30, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Also this month: Amanda Knox tells her story, trans nature writing, journalists on Asian Pacific America, mountain rescue, and many poets.

White Bird’s 2025/26 season of dance: Complexions, Limón, Dance Theatre of Harlem and more

April 19, 2025Amy Leona Havin

The Portland dance presenter's 28th season also includes Urban Bush Women, Ballet Jazz Montréal, Gibney Company, Hervé KOUBI, Barcelona's Lali Ayguade, and L.A.'s Versa-Style Street Dance.

Oregon Ballet Theatre’s ‘Marilyn’, the consideration of icons, and the influence of old Hollywood

April 9, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Dani Rowe's world-premiere ballet about the life and times of Marilyn Monroe moves through space deftly as it grapples with her legend and the men who surrounded her.

Portland essayist William Deresiewicz talks good news, bad news, and the effect of solitude

April 2, 2025Amy Leona Havin

The author of "The Death of the Artist" and "The End of Solitude" says social media "doesn’t let you be alone. It takes away your solitude" and becomes a compulsive need for feedback.

LitWatch April: Oregon Book Awards, a conversation with Jodi Picoult, and Street Books celebrates 15 years

March 30, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Literary Arts will present the 2025 Oregon Book Awards on April 28. Also this month, authors discuss the high cost of rent, the 1906 wreck of the steamship Valencia, and Robert Crumb.

Dance Review: ‘FLOOR’ is a plastilina wonderland of depth and dialogue

March 24, 2025Amy Leona Havin

At Performance Works Northwest, three dancers, a rush of words, a flight of balloons, and a beautiful straddling of metaphoric balance between fantasy and reality.

Writer and activist Thalia Zepatos receives the 2025 Soapstone Bread and Roses Award

March 6, 2025Amy Leona Havin

The author of "A Journey of One's Own," who helped come up with the marriage-equality slogan “love is love," will be honored on International Women’s Day.

LitWatch March: Small Press Month, N.K. Jemisin, Ellen Waterston, Gorge Book Festival, and Cannon Beach Library’s 7th Annual Writers Read

March 2, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Spring brings an inaugural book festival in Hood River, a tour by Oregon's Poet Laureate, readings, and workshops.

Dance Review: Oregon Ballet Theatre’s ‘Giselle’ provides and withholds

February 26, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Danced impeccably by the Portland company, the production is less successful dramatically, falling short of the ballet's underlying clash between classes.

Dance Review: Linda Austin Dance’s ‘In Preparation for Disappearances to Come’

February 21, 2025Amy Leona Havin

Reality and comedy and the boundaries of performance are at play, distorted as three performers mix it up with bark and piles of clothes and speak to the audience.

Dance Maker Discussion: Linda Austin on making work, getting inspired, and 25 years of PWNW

February 4, 2025Amy Leona Havin

The celebrated dance maker and co-founder of Portland’s Performance Works Northwest is celebrating 25 years of the studio and roughly 40 years of making work.

LitWatch February: Valentine’s Day, Neko Case, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Jess Walter

January 28, 2025Amy Leona Havin

This month brings Hannah-Jones, author of "The 1619 Project," to Oregon, as well as appearances by poets Ross Gay and Judith Barrington, among others.

Dance review: ‘SMALLER’ is a lovely ode to Steve Paxton

January 23, 2025Amy Leona Havin

At Performance Works NW, contemporary dancers and a musician honor the spirit and memory of a pioneer of Small Dance and Contact Improvisation.

LitWatch January: A new literary year begins with a poem a day in William Stafford’s memory

December 30, 2024Amy Leona Havin

Authors giving readings this month include Erica Berry, Marat Grinberg, Judith Barrington, and Sen. Ron Wyden.

2024 in Review: New avenues for Portland’s literary hubs and libraries

December 29, 2024Amy Leona Havin

A new home for Literary Arts, a new poet laureate, some major library remodels, an overflow of book festivals and a shelf full of new books by Oregon writers put a shine on the literary year.

Last minute gift guide: 2024 Oregon Book Award winners’ favorite books for holiday giving

December 20, 2024Amy Leona Havin

Josephine Woolington, Waka T. Brown, Nora Ericson, and Daniela Molnar offer suggestions ranging from picture books, to poetry, to a monthly letter of romantic, erotic stories.

Review: For Oregon Ballet Theatre’s ‘Nutcracker’, the future looks bright

December 13, 2024Amy Leona Havin

The holiday classic, continuing at Keller Auditorium through Christmas Eve, is a smooth and sprightly spectacle, one of OBT's best renditions of the Balanchine ballet.

BodyVox’s ‘Serious Seasonal Cupcakes’ is a sweet holiday display

December 11, 2024Amy Leona Havin

The Portland company's holiday showcase charms with seven short-and-sweet, fresh new dances by established and emerging choreographers connected to BodyVox.

Harold Johnson, Portland poet, educator, and author of ‘Citizenship,’ has died

December 5, 2024Amy Leona Havin

The 91-year-old also wrote a novel, "The Fort Showalter Blues," based on his experience in the Army.

LitWatch December: Literary Arts’ new headquarters opens and Oregon Historical Society spreads holiday cheer

December 3, 2024Amy Leona Havin

Festive events include opportunities for book shopping, The Moth Mainstage, and a story time for pups.

Portland Book Festival: Joe Wilkins, author of ‘The Entire Sky,’ on importance of place and ‘the mythic years’

October 31, 2024Amy Leona Havin

The Linfield University professor has written poetry, novels, essays, and memoir. "Working with language and story somehow gets me back into the way I need to be," he says.

Dance review: The abstract, dreamlike duet of ‘Drive Wolves Mad’

October 29, 2024Amy Leona Havin

At Portland's Performance Works NW, the Seattle choreography duo of Kaitlin McCarthy and Jenny Peterson uses masks, flashes of skin, a ghostly sheet, and comedy to deliver a dreamlike abstraction of society’s values.